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Monday, October 1, 2012

Well I’m back from a couple of weeks annual holiday and time
to update the blogs. The problem with taking this break was I finished this
novel on my first day so the recollections could be a bit dimmed by the sun,
reefs and rainforest.

Let me introduce you to Egon Loeser (you can follow him on
twitter although you can’t find author Ned Beauman there), a set designer in
1930’s Berlin who is working on a play about the life of Adriano Lavicini, a fellow
set designer from the Renaissance who presumably died when his teleportation
machine destroyed the theatre on its debut. Egon is building a teleportation
set, whereby people can travel across time and space and appear at any point of
the stage almost seemlessly. But deep down Egon is struggling, he hasn’t has
sex since he split up with his girlfriend a long time ago and a glamorous
former student, Adele, has just returned to his life only to run off, for a one
night stand, with an author who has stolen Egon’s hero and written an ill
researched pulp story. A heartbroken Egon then proceeds to Paris to find Adele,
unsuccessfully of course,come across a longevity plan where the transplanting of
monkey glands might just work. And then
finally onto Los Angeles where he befriends a local writer (one of his heroes)
and his charming wife Dolores Mutton as well the owner of a pulp fiction book
store who introduces him to HP Lovecraft. Of course he becomes involved in time
travel via a secret university study into a real teleportation device.

This novel is hilarious in parts, so much so I was laughing
out loud on the train:

You could certainly write
symphonies about Dolores Mutton. You could write at least a scherzo about her
cleavage alone.

Dear Mother and Father. Good
news: I am rich. I have cornered the market in foreskins.

As a result, no doubt, of some bureaucratic
oversight, Sunset Boulevard had a beginning and a middle but no end. The cost
was not far now, but Sunset Boulevard probably just rolled on down the beach
and into the water and onwards to Shanghai.

I will stuff this book so far
down your throat that your duodenum will autograph it in bile.

Ned Beauman’s novel is one weird piece of work. Besides the
laughing out loud, the engagement with the writing styles and settings is engrossing.
For over 240 pages I was totally extolling the virtues of this young writer,
then the novel seemed to fall apart for 100 or so pages. The section covering
the sci-fi style of Lovecraft was not my cup of tea. However I did enjoy the
four leaps in time as the ending, which (for some reason or other) reminded me
of David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas”. This
also had hints of David Foster Wallace, but not as detailed (no footnotes
here). And the use of time (as part of a Teleportation Accident) was extremely
clever – how can I person in the 1930’s discuss what it may be like in 2012 and
be so uncannily accurate?

I can understand why this novel didn’t make this year’s
shortlist, for me it was the flat section late in the novel, however I will be
hunting down his debut “Boxer, Beetle” – as well as continuing to follow the
fictional Egon Loeser on twitter. I will also be looking out for future work
from Ned Beauman who, at only 27 years of age right now, will certainly become
a well-known writer.

Next up will be my review of Will Self’s “Umbrella” – now that
was a challenging read!!!